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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659685">But Are You Guilty?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void'>local_doom_void</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Methods of Humanity [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentor Voldemort (Harry Potter), Parent Voldemort (Harry Potter), Parseltongue, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), the moral ramblings of a 12 year old child</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:01:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry knows objectively that he shouldn't be happy. He knows this, but as time goes on, less and less of him believes it – and when you don't believe, knowing tends to become more difficult.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter &amp; Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter &amp; Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Methods of Humanity [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1034</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>But Are You Guilty?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An interlude dedicated to our tiniest Parselmouth.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The best month in Harry Potter's life is not, it turns out, the month he discovered he was a wizard. It is not his first month at Hogwarts when he finally had friends for the first time in his life, either. No – as it happens, the title goes to none of these possibilities, scarce though they are.</p><p>The best month in Harry Potter's life is July of 1993. This is the first month that he spends living with Voldemort. Specifically, in Voldemort’s house. Specifically, alone with Voldemort in Voldemort’s house. Though not technically alone, Harry corrects himself – Nagini is here. But she and Voldemort sort of come as a unit, and she’s a snake, so in a way he’s alone.</p><p>Voldemort’s house is not what Harry would have expected of Voldemort. He’s admittedly not quite sure what he was expecting in general, but whatever vague brushstrokes of dark dankness there were painted in his mind, this isn’t those. Voldemort’s house has a dark countertop in the kitchen, true, and the furniture is dark wood where it is wood. But the cushions on the couch are light green, the curtains white and partly transparent, the windows large and airy. The ceilings are high and allow a sense of space, not of oppression. It’s not even that large – not an estate. Just a house. It’s about the size of the Dursleys’ house.</p><p>In fact, Harry’s pretty sure it’s a muggle house. Or at least, that it was designed in a muggle style? He’s pretty sure wizard homes don’t have such neat tiling in the kitchen. It tends to be flagstones instead, or at least, it did in the Weasleys’ house last summer. He can admit he hasn’t seen a lot of wizard homes.</p><p>The closest neighbor is a muggle family in a muggle home. They have no idea Voldemort is here, though, and their house is a long walk away, so Harry doesn’t see too much threat to them. The pay phone that he can use to call Hermione is halfway to this other house. Once he sees a muggle teenager, a girl, riding her bike up and down the road. She waved to him, and Harry was so shocked that he forgot to wave back. He hasn’t seen her since, but he’s started to assume she lives in that other house.</p><p>It’s his birthday tomorrow. Harry doesn’t go so far as to assume that Voldemort will care, but for the first time that he can remember, he feels that he might be able to actually enjoy the day of it. He’s still lying awake in bed, of course. His midnight countdown ritual is too ingrained in him now. It would feel wrong not to complete this ritual – as if he weren’t really turning thirteen, and were only pretending at age. Voldemort hasn’t shown any sign of caring when Harry goes to sleep or when he wakes up, unless they’re going somewhere, in which case he still doesn’t care – he just wakes Harry up half an hour before they need to go. Harry’s in charge of getting enough sleep on his own. They aren’t going anywhere tomorrow, though, at least not that Harry’s aware.</p><p>Voldemort doesn’t have digital clocks in his house, but he does have plenty of spare pocketwatches. Harry glances at the one sitting on his bedside table and sees that it’s 11:24 pm. For once, he can have the light on in his bedroom while he waits, and he’s been reading books to pass the time. This action – having time to read books – all feels rather luxurious, but Harry insists to himself that he deserves it. It’s his birthday soon, after all.</p><p>It’s been over a month.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>The first thing Harry feels when he looks at Voldemort’s house is disbelief.</p><p>“You <em>live</em> here?” he asks.</p><p>“Shockingly, yes,” Voldemort agrees. Immediately Harry feels rather stupid. Voldemort <em>had</em> said a bunch of times that he had a house. Harry shouldn’t be so surprised to see a house.</p><p>“Oh,” is all he says. At a loss, he looks around for wherever his trunk got to. He suddenly realises that he just let Voldemort take his trunk earlier today, without a single thought that just maybe Harry shouldn’t be letting all his worldly possessions out of his sight like that. “Where are my things?”</p><p>“Upstairs in one of the guest rooms,” Voldemort says. He drops his cloak over the back of the couch and wanders fluidly into the kitchen that Harry can see on the other side of the entryway, where he makes two glasses of ice water. One of them floats into Harry’s hand without Voldemort even glancing at him. Harry stares at all of these movements, wondering why they’re so different from Thomas Moregrave, and how he does that, in any case. Does he always think about how he’s moving his body? That seems exhausting.</p><p>“Did they feed you anything on the Express that meets the definition of real food?”</p><p>“I had some pumpkin pasties.”</p><p>“Of course you did. Go change then, I can’t take you to a muggle pizza place while you’re wearing robes.”</p><p>Harry wanders around a bit, sipping his water, and fails to notice the stairs until Voldemort vanishes into what Harry thought was just a little alcove in one corner. He follows the Dark Lord up the stairs, and then peeks into the door that swings open on its own when he passes it. His trunk is in there at the foot of the bed – <em>the bed</em>.</p><p>Harry gapes, and tries to reconcile the comfortable mattress and canopy bed in front of him with the picture of the Dursleys’ guest bedroom.</p><p>It doesn’t work, so he focuses on digging through his trunk to find the better muggle clothes he has stashed on the bottom. They’re a little wrinkley, and the collared shirt is too big for him, but he can fix some of that by rolling up the sleeves, and then by tucking the t-shirt underneath into his jeans before he belts them shut.</p><p>He goes downstairs. Voldemort is somehow already there, even though Harry didn’t hear him going back down. Just as Harry is preparing himself to have to endure whatever the Dark Lord’s sense of muggle fashion is, the man comes complete around the corner, and Harry has to do a double take.</p><p>He looks <em>normal</em>.</p><p>He looks fancy, too. Harry doesn’t really think that people wear collared shirts and – slacks? Black jeans? He isn’t sure – to pizza. But still, he looks entirely proper for somebody in a muggle area.</p><p>Voldemort, for his part, is also staring at Harry with a strange look on his face. Harry looks behind him, just in case it’s Nagini doing something odd, but she’s not there.</p><p>“Good Morgana, Harry, what are those?”</p><p>Harry looks down at himself. “Er – clothes?” he says.</p><p>Voldemort shakes his head. “Absolutely not,” he says – and then stops and stares at the ceiling for a moment. “The bastard,” he says, very confusingly, and looks back down. “I suppose those are your best muggle clothes?”</p><p>Harry nods slowly. He’s long since given up on understanding how Voldemort can always seem to figure out the truth without any evidence to show it to him. Maybe that’s part of why everyone thought he was terrifying – he’s way too smart.</p><p>“Well, they won’t work, but I have a solution. Back up the stairs.”</p><p>Harry lets himself be herded upstairs. Voldemort goes into another room and returns with a pair of muggle jeans and a collared shirt that actually fit him, for the most part. Harry has no idea where they came from and he’s a bit too stunned to ask, distracted by the sensation of jeans that fit his hips. He’s never felt such a thing before.</p><p>Once he’s, apparently, acceptable, they apparate into the back corner of a half-full parking lot in the middle of a city. Harry is torn between staring around and following Voldemort, who walks very fast, at a brisk trot.</p><p>They go into a pizza place. Harry’s so distracted by the mouth-watering smell that he doesn’t even pay attention to the name. Then he’s distracted by the fact that Voldemort is talking to the muggle just inside the front door without any sign of being angry that he has to talk to a muggle, and before he knows it, they’re sitting at a booth in the back. Harry’s seen diner booths on the telly before, but he’s never sat in one. Now not only is he sitting in one, but he’s sitting across from <em>Voldemort</em>.</p><p>It’s very strange.</p><p>“So you’ve never had pizza,” Voldemort is saying. He looks pensive.</p><p>Harry shakes his head.</p><p>“Well, you’ll get cheese, then. If you don’t like plain cheese pizza then you won’t like pizza at all.”</p><p>“Do you eat pizza a lot?” Harry asks.</p><p>“Sometimes.”</p><p>Harry wonders what that’s supposed to mean. “Even though they’re…” Can he say the word ‘muggle’ here? He’s not sure if he should.</p><p>“The cuisine in Diagon Alley can be acceptable, but leaves much to be desired,” Voldemort says in response. At least he understood what Harry meant, but it still doesn’t really answer his question.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t like, um, people.”</p><p>“I don’t like people,” Voldemort says bluntly. “Why would you ever think I liked people?”</p><p>“I mean, you don’t like… you know,” Harry mutters. “<em>Normal</em> people.”</p><p>“Harry, you and I are the normal people. But I see you’ve been listening to Dumbledore propaganda.” He sighs, and runs a set of long fingers through his dark hair. “That answer is far too complex for a pizza place. Ask me again at the house.”</p><p>That’s fair enough, Harry supposes. “Alright.”</p><p>They’re quiet until the pizza comes. After his first bite, Harry completely forgets about the concept of conversation, in any case.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>“Go unpack your trunk and bring all your clothes down here,” Voldemort orders once they get back.</p><p>Harry, who feels like he had a question that he’s forgotten to ask, balks. “Why?” he demands.</p><p>Voldemort, instead of answering, closes his eyes and wipes his hand across his face. Harry squints, confused, but the unspoken question answers itself when his eyes flare <em>red</em> as they open. He hasn’t seen Voldemort’s real eyes yet, and for a moment he stares. Red isn’t really a human eye color, and so to see them on a human face is doing some strange things to Harry’s mind. Why does he have red eyes? He couldn’t have been born with them. When did he get them? Does he like them? Hate them? Doesn’t care?</p><p>“<em>I said</em>,” Voldemort hisses in Parseltongue, “<em>go and get all your scales down here.</em>”</p><p>“<em>You haven’t told me why yet</em>,” Harry retorts.</p><p>“<em>Does that matter? You will do it.</em>”</p><p>Harry grumbles. But then Voldemort tells him the transfiguration on his current outfit will be wearing off in five minutes, so Harry hastily stumbles up the stairs. When he gets into the guest bedroom with his trunk, he sheds the clothes, and watches them turn back into a pair of wizards’ trousers and a tunic which are far too large to fit him.</p><p>… Are those Voldemort’s?</p><p>He went to a pizza place wearing Voldemort’s clothes! Transfigured, but still. It’s almost hilarious.</p><p>Instead, Harry carefully puts on one of his school tunics, and his least worn pair of muggle jeans, before dumping his trunk out. There’s not much, so he gathers up it all in his arms and heads back downstairs, wondering why he’s even obeying. Then again, he also wonders why Voldemort even cares.</p><p>Perhaps it’s the certainty that Voldemort must care, in some way, that makes him do it without complaint. Voldemort very clearly doesn’t do things for the gesture of it. He only bothers to put any effort into something if he means it.</p><p>It is for this reason that Harry dumps his entire wardrobe on Voldemort’s couch and allows the tall, thin, oddly fluid man to pick through it</p><p>“It’s not that bad,” Harry says when he notices a wrinkled nose, unsure who he’s defending.</p><p>“It’s completely inadequate,” Voldemort says with a hissing undertone to his English. “Most of these clothes are fit only for cleaning or the trash, your Hogwarts robes don’t fit you, and all your casual clothes are muggle to boot.”</p><p>“I can probably buy new Hogwarts robes in August,” Harry mutters. “I think I can afford it.”</p><p>“Afford – ?”</p><p>Voldemort stares at him with that same strange look he wore in his office, when he was telling Harry that nobody stays at the castle over the summer. No matter how much they might need to.</p><p>“<em>Well</em>,” he hisses, throwing a tattered, overlarge t-shirt back onto the couch, “<em>that will not be an issue.</em>”</p><p>It won’t? Harry thinks, but does not say.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The next morning, Voldemort hands him a set of old robes at breakfast and tells him to go change. They fit him fairly well, though they look a little odd, and Harry comes back down rubbing the hem of the sleeves between his fingers and wondering why they seem different from the robes he’s used to seeing.</p><p>“Are these transfigured from your clothes again?” he demands.</p><p>“No,” Voldemort says. “They’re my old clothes from the 30s.”</p><p>The 30s –</p><p>“How old are you?!” Harry demands.</p><p>“I was born in 1926.” On January 1st, he doesn’t say, but Harry knows that already because Voldemort told him that months ago. Funny, their birthdays are almost opposite – the depths of winter and the peak of summer.</p><p>Wait – 1926?!</p><p>Harry boggles at Voldemort. “You’re ancient!”</p><p>“Didn’t I tell you I was sixty-seven, you brat?”</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Voldemort’s eyes turn gray again, and Harry’s skin turns pale, his eyes become brown, and his hair becomes less chaotic. His scar vanishes. He feels very strange about all of this, but then they’re in Diagon Alley, and nobody is mobbing him, because nobody knows Harry Potter is <em>here</em>.</p><p>At first Harry thinks they’re just here for Madame Malkin. Instead, to Harry’s shock, Voldemort grabs him by the wrist and goes into Gringotts – just walks right on in. Harry even sees Arthur Weasley standing in line for a teller, just ahead and to the left of them. He tries not to gape at this. Wouldn’t they all panic if only they knew? Voldemort is right here. He’s standing next to Harry with one hand still clamped around Harry’s wrist, and though Harry’s definitely experienced adults holding onto him before, this feels…</p><p>… Different.</p><p>Aunt Petunia would grab him sometimes, but usually by the upper arm. Her grip was always full of nails, and very tight. Voldemort is wearing dark gloves, for a reason that Harry cannot fathom given it’s the end of June, and he’s holding on to Harry’s wrist without much force. It’s a grip, but it’s not bruising. It’s clearly there, and clearly solid, but it isn’t really making Harry panic.</p><p>He gets lost in staring at one of the mosaics on the ceiling, and when the line moves and Voldemort tugs him forward, it’s not a sharp tug like Aunt Petunia would do. It’s a tug, sure, but it’s got give to it. Harry’s arm stretches easily, alerting him that he has to move before anything gets painful, and when he moves, he finds everything is just the same as it was before.</p><p>This is very different, but it isn’t <em>bad</em>.</p><p>“Mister Riddle,” grumbles the goblin when they get to the front. Harry almost frowns before he remembers <em>Tom Riddle</em>, and then realises that obviously the goblins aren’t going to call him ‘Voldemort’ in front of everyone. Not if they’re… happily doing his banking for him?</p><p>“I would speak with both my and the boy’s account managers,” Voldemort says. He sounds really snooty all of a sudden. “The boy will therefore come with me.”</p><p>“Declarations?” the goblin asks nonsensically.</p><p>But Voldemort seems to know what that means. “For both of us.”</p><p>“Very well.” The goblin thumps three times on the edge of its desk, and a little portion of the teller desk lifts. “Proceed. Next!”</p><p>Voldemort drags Harry through the new doorway, and it closes behind them. Harry can only watch in awe as he sees a part of Gringotts he didn’t even realise people were allowed into.</p><p>In a small atrium a few staircases and one hallway down, Voldemort approaches a goblin standing at attention by a doorway. “The boy has skin, eye, and hair glamours to hide his identity from the magical public,” he says. “I am wearing my usual eye glamours.”</p><p>“What is his identity?” the goblin scratches out.</p><p>“Harry Potter.”</p><p>That is definitely interest, Harry thinks, as the goblin’s gaze slides to him with a sharp, keen look.</p><p>“Has mister Harry Potter his key?”</p><p>“I will be using blood proof,” Voldemort interrupts before Harry can speak. “The state of his key and finances is unknown to both him and me. However, as I am providing for his material well-being at this moment, I have the right to access records under the various guardianship accords of the 1700s.”</p><p>“You declare this?”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>The goblin mutters something nonsensical under its breath. Voldemort doesn’t react, but waits, so Harry doesn’t react either.</p><p>“Remain a moment,” the goblin says. “Remove your glamours while you wait.” Instead of turning to the doorway, it walks over to the wall and then – vanishes?</p><p>“What is blood proof?” Harry asks, questions suddenly spilling out of him without his permission. “What’s a guardianship accord? How did that goblin walk into the wall like that? What are we doing here anyway?”</p><p>He’s quite sure Voldemort is going to tell him to be quiet, because he’s not being Harry’s Defense professor right now, but at least he won’t be yelled at for asking questions. That’s not Voldemort’s style.</p><p>“Slow down so I can actually process your concerns,” Voldemort says instead, and waves the glamours from Harry’s face and hands. They come away like colored smoke, and Voldemort wipes his own eyes back to red. “Ask again.”</p><p>Harry’s brain darts around before he settles on one idea. “What are we doing here?”</p><p>“While I have plenty of my own money, far be it for me to accept a child in my house for three months without understanding the child’s financial situation,” Voldemort says, watching the doorway. “Also, depending on access rights, Albus Dumbledore may notice if you do not withdraw your usual school supply money. I will be paying for your school supplies,” he snaps before Harry can do more than open his mouth. “But we will take the required money out if it becomes necessary.”</p><p>Harry wants very badly to argue against this declaration. Unfortunately, the goblin comes back, and they are ushered through the doorway.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Harry can’t breathe. He feels like he’s choking, but on what is questionable. Is it air? His own saliva? The unbearable tightness in his chest? Maybe it’s even his own tears, because he thinks he might be crying. Then some cool and tingling liquid is sliding down his throat, and everything goes still and calm once again. He feels tired, and a little achey.</p><p>Slowly, Harry looks up at Voldemort, gray-eyed once more. The Dark Lord is stowing an empty vial into a pocket of his robes. He feels odd, and blank.</p><p>“Calming draught,” Voldemort says. “Come, I’d rather be home when it wears off.”</p><p>He takes Harry’s wrist again and tugs him out of Gringotts. They head back to Diagon proper and Voldemort steers Harry into a clothes shop he’s never seen before. It looks expensive, but Harry can’t muster up the energy or concern enough to protest at this expense being used on him of all people.</p><p>Voldemort buys way too many robes and tunics and trousers, and socks and underclothes, wizard though they are, and even two sets of sleeping tunics and leggings. Harry can’t even bother to feel embarrassed that the actual Dark Lord is buying him underwear, and feels briefly thankful for the potion. He wants to protest that he doesn’t need so many robes, and certainly not so many socks, but whenever he tries to speak all that passes his lips is his usual breathing. For some reason, he can’t find the words he needs to protest all of this. Instead he’s left with the strangest sense that maybe he wants this. Like he can just sit back and let it happen, and be fine at the end of the day.</p><p>He doesn’t even know whose money they’re using for this – his or Voldemort’s.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>By the time they walk back to the apparition circle, Harry is starting to wake back up. He’s having trouble breathing again, and he’s strangely grateful for Voldemort’s firm but not painful grip on his wrist. It gives him something to focus on, and ensures he doesn’t collapse and start shaking into little pieces.</p><p>They pop back into existence in front of Voldemort’s house. Harry barely makes it through the door, and when Voldemort releases his wrist, everything shatters again. He sprints upstairs before he can burst into tears and collapses face-first onto the guest room bed he’s been granted.</p><p>The crying fit doesn’t last long. Harry’s never been big on crying, considering. But he does continue to lay there without moving, face in the duvet and feet hanging off the edge of the mattress. If Voldemort brought Harry here to kill him, he could come in and do it right now if he wanted.</p><p>But – he had so many chances before now.</p><p>Harry’s neck is starting to feel stiff, but he still doesn’t move.</p><p>Dumbledore was paying the Dursleys.</p><p>They were getting money for him. To put him up. To buy him clothes and school supplies, and for his medical visits – to pay for <em>Harry</em>.</p><p>It’s not at all unusual, says the goblin again in Harry’s head, and he wants to scream and rage and cry, wants to walk up to Hogwarts and knock down the door to Dumbledore’s office and wreck the place and scream at him until he understands just what he did, and how much it hurts.</p><p>“<em>Hatchling</em>,” hisses a soothing voice from the hallway.</p><p>Harry peeks past the cover and sees Nagini coiled up in the threshold. She’s so big that she blocks it entirely, even as part of her body clearly trails out into the hallway.</p><p>“<em>Hi Nagini</em>,” he hisses. His voice is muffled by the duvet.</p><p>This is apparently an invitation, because she slithers in and joins him on the mattress. “<em>You are upset.</em>”</p><p>Harry can’t do much more than hum.</p><p>“<em>What is upsetting you?</em>”</p><p>Haltingly, Harry explains. He has to shift his concepts in order to make sure Nagini gets it, but in doing so, he finds it clarified for himself as well – stark and simple.</p><p>Dumbledore set aside a nest for Harry, one with a comfortable temperature, and food. But the Dursleys took all of Harry’s nest and food and gave it to Dudley, and they pretended to Harry that there was never a nest at all, nor any food. But not only did they do that – when they did it, either Dumbledore didn’t know (which means he didn’t bother to see how Harry was getting on), or he did know – but he didn’t care enough to do anything about it.</p><p>Neither of these is good.</p><p>Isn’t Dumbledore supposed to be the good guy? Voldemort’s supposed to be evil, too. But he has all those new clothes... speaking of which –</p><p>Harry finally finds the strength to tug himself from the bed because he’s curious what Voldemort actually bought for him.</p><p>“<em>Hey Nagini</em>,” he hisses. The large cobra turns her head slowly towards him. “<em>Want to come sort through my new scales with me?</em>”</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Once he’s made a mess of the sitting room by unwrapping packages, Voldemort forces a plate with leftover pizza on it into his hands and makes him eat lunch on the back porch, which Harry didn’t even realise was there. Then he is ordered to make the sitting room presentable again, so Harry dutifully cleans up every trace of his presence and bundles all the clothes upstairs into the guest bedroom he’s using.</p><p>For some reason, Voldemort looks surprised by how clean he leaves it.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The next day, Voldemort shoves a generously sized bag of pence into Harry’s hands and tells him how to get to the pay phone. Baffled, Harry heads out, wearing one of his new tunics over a pair of trousers that, combined, looks muggle-ish enough not to be too odd.</p><p>Once he gets to the pay phone, he puts in his first pence and dials the number Hermione made him memorise on the Express back. It rings three times, and then a man’s voice speaks – one he doesn’t recognise. “Granger residence,” he says, “Paul speaking.”</p><p>Harry suddenly realises he has no idea how to talk to people over the telephone. Sure, he’s seen it done, and he knows the theory – but he’s never actually done it. What does he say?</p><p>“Er,” comes out. Then he hurries to blurt the rest out, in case the man tries to hang up. “HiI’mHarryI’mHermione’sfriendisshethere?”</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>Harry forces himself to take a deep breath. “I’m Harry,” he says. “I’m Hermione’s friend. From – school. Is she there?”</p><p>“Oh, <em>school</em>,” says mister Paul Granger. Harry feels like he’s being winked at over the phone, even though he can’t see it. “She’s here.” His voice becomes more distant, but Harry can still hear it. “Hermione? Phone for you, somebody named Har – ”</p><p>“HARRY?!” That was definitely Hermione’s voice, her exclamation loud enough to sound like she was right there. There’s a strange rustling noise, a dull thud, and then a breathless but familiar voice coming through.</p><p>“Harry!” Hermione cries. “How are you? Is everything okay? Did you get any of our letters yet? Have you been eating? Are you – ”</p><p>“Merlin, Hermione,” Harry says weakly. He even laughs. “I haven’t gotten your letters yet, but it’s barely been two days. Wait – <em>any of?</em> How many letters did you <em>write?</em>”</p><p>“Well,” she says. She sounds embarrassed. “Ron only wrote one, but I wrote two – one of them’s inside the other. Are you at the pay phone?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“How much pence do you have?”</p><p>Harry glances at the bag Voldemort shoved at him. “Lots, I think. He gave me a Gringotts bagful.”</p><p>“Oh.” Hermione sounds strangely surprised, and clears her throat. Harry wonders what there is to be surprised about, before remember that he’s the only one of the three of them who’s spent more than five minutes with Voldemort while Voldemort was being Voldemort. “Well, that’s good. That means you can talk without worrying about a time limit.”</p><p>Harry nods, before remembering Hermione can’t see him. “Yeah.”</p><p>“So.” That’s Hermione’s business tone, and Harry tries not to be worried. “How have you been?”</p><p>How has he been?</p><p>Harry stares down at the floor of the pay phone booth, and scuffs his new sandals over the linoleum. “It’s... weird,” he finally decides.</p><p>“Weird?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Harry says. He feels strangely hollow. “I got, uh, a guest bedroom. It’s pretty big. He has two for some reason, but I don’t think he ever has visitors? Why does he have them?”</p><p>“I really couldn’t say.”</p><p>“We had pizza the first evening,” Harry goes on. “It’s so good, Hermione, have you ever had pizza? If you haven’t you have to, right now. Tonight.”</p><p>There’s a strange laugh from Hermione’s end of the line. “Yeah, I’ve had pizza.”</p><p>“Well I had to check, didn’t I? Ron probably hasn’t had it, we should make him have some this summer.” Harry taps his foot as he tries to think of ways not to talk about yesterday.</p><p>“What else happened?” Hermione asks, very unhelpfully.</p><p>“Well, this morning – ”</p><p>“Harry, what happened yesterday and why are you avoiding it?”</p><p>Hermione is way too smart.</p><p>Harry swallows unhappily. “It’s not… I mean. I guess it was kind of good and kind of bad.”</p><p>“Kind of bad.” Her voice is icy, and Harry feels certain who she’s blaming.</p><p>“It wasn’t his fault!” Harry says. He doesn’t bother to try and process the idea that he’s defending Voldemort of all people. “He’s been really decent, ‘Mione, honest. We – well, you know how you’re always complaining about my muggle clothes?”</p><p>“Mm?”</p><p>“Guess he decided to too. So he took me shopping. I have a lot of wizard clothes now.”</p><p>“... He bought you clothes?”</p><p>“Weird, innit?” Harry says, and tries to laugh.</p><p>“So why was that bad?” Hermione asks suspiciously.</p><p>He doesn’t want to say it. Not aloud – not in English and aloud. Saying it in Parseltongue twists it into something both more and less real, and in Parseltongue, it’s all simple. Clear. But he can’t speak Parseltongue to Hermione, and honestly isn’t sure if the language would even carry over the static of the phone line.</p><p>“Well… before we did, he wanted to check my account.” That reminds him that he should really ask Voldemort whose money paid for all his new clothes. “So we did. And – I – Dumbledore was, the Dursleys were – ”</p><p>He can’t say it, or he’s going to cry again – even if it’s just frustration.</p><p>“... Were they taking your – ?”</p><p>At least she won’t make him say it yet. “Yeah,” Harry whispers.</p><p>They talk of nicer things for a while – Hogwarts, and Hermione’s summer plans. Hermione reminds Harry none too gently that he should get his summer homework started, and Harry is shocked to realise that, in this house, he could probably just do his homework at the kitchen table. During the <em>day</em>.</p><p>That’s… incredible.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>He doesn’t use up even half the bag of pence, so he offers it to Voldemort when he gets back.</p><p>“I don’t have a use for pence coins,” Voldemort snorts. He doesn’t look up from the book he’s annotating with bright green ink. “Keep it. It shouldn’t run out at any point.”</p><p>Harry carefully tucks the bag of coins into a corner of his trunk, and tests whether he can do his homework at the kitchen table. Voldemort intercepts him before he can get there – but only to tell him not to work with ink at the kitchen table.</p><p>“I have a better place for that sort of thing anyway,” he says.</p><p>This is when Harry first sees the library.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>It’s a lot easier to focus on his homework when he has enough light to see without squinting. It’s a lot less nerve-wracking when he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally waking up Uncle Vernon. It’s easier to read his textbooks more carefully when he doesn’t have to frantically ration every minute to squeeze the most possible work out of it.</p><p>It’s also easier to concentrate when it’s quiet, on top of all that. Gryffindor tower is never this quiet. It’s just him, Harry, sitting at a way too big desk with his textbooks spread out around him and without having to worry about whether his quill is scratching too loudly on the parchment.</p><p>There’s no way Voldemort’s library isn’t space-expanded, though. High ceilings or not, this room is way too big for the house.</p><p>He’s actually surprised when Voldemort opens the door unceremoniously and informs him that it’s dinnertime.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>By the end of the first two weeks, Harry is actually done with all his summer homework.</p><p>It’s the most incredible feeling he’s ever felt before. It’s not hanging over his head. He feels free.</p><p>He’s started to get a sort of routine going. He eats breakfast with Voldemort in the morning, if they wake up at a similar enough time. Harry isn’t sure if Voldemort has a regular sleep schedule and hasn’t been able to pin one down if he does. He’s seen a peek of Voldemort’s bedroom once, when the door was ajar, but hasn’t looked more closely. It seems rude. What little he did see was dark gray and black furnishings, with emerald green accents.</p><p>Sort of Slytherin, actually.</p><p>If they don’t wake up close enough to each other, Harry makes himself breakfast and then finds something to occupy his time. Sometimes he rides his broom a bit. Sometimes he makes a sweep of the lower floor and picks up scattered items to put them back where he’s seen them belong, because – apparently – Voldemort leaves things out all the time. Sometimes he goes out into the back yard and finds the nest of garter snakes living in the woods so he can bother them. They’re simple snakes, not nearly as smart as Nagini, but they’re very funny. Sometimes he works on his homework a bit more. He’s actually rewriting one of the essays that got a big glob of ink on the middle when he wasn’t paying attention.</p><p>Sometimes he just finds an interesting looking book from one of the uncursed shelves in Voldemort’s library and reads.</p><p>Voldemort eats lunch when it suits him, which means he doesn’t eat lunch very often, but he does keep the kitchen stocked enough that Harry can usually make himself a sandwich for lunch. They both drink a lot of lemonade. Once Harry even gets glamoured up to go shopping with Voldemort and help carry the bags, which leads to the startling, incredible revelation that the Dark Lord shops at Tesco’s.</p><p>Harry imagines everyone’s face if only they knew, and gets a great laugh out of it.</p><p>In the afternoons, Voldemort usually ends up in the study. Sometimes he kicks Harry out of the desk so he can write like he’s been possessed. Sometimes he just sits in one of the armchairs and reads and makes notes like he’s been possessed. Harry always has to carefully consider whether asking questions is worth it, because the moment he asks a question Voldemort will start talking and he won’t stop, and while sometimes Harry learns a lot from it, sometimes it makes his head spin because even the basics of whatever Voldemort is talking about are far beyond his comprehension.</p><p>Retired or not, he’s so smart that he’s almost stupid.</p><p>They do eat dinner together in the evenings. If Harry doesn’t show up on time, Voldemort will come find him. Sometimes he takes him out to various muggle restaurants with no warning, and sometimes he makes something from scratch in the kitchen. Harry privately thinks that Voldemort’s cooking isn’t as good as Harry’s cooking, but Voldemort won’t let him do more than cook eggs and bacon and toast in the morning, or pour drinks. It’s not that it’s bad – Harry just knows he could do more. He thinks Voldemort might like it, too, if he were able to cook for them at least once. Then the man wouldn’t need to bother with it.</p><p>After dinner, they often end up in the backyard, where more reading goes on – either in the chairs on the patio, or in the hammock further back at the edge of the treeline. Harry rarely gets the hammock if Voldemort wants it, because it only fits one person, and Voldemort keeps levitating Harry out of it if he wants it. For some reason, Harry doesn’t mind this. This time, too, is spent reading, or with Voldemort talking about something he’s stupidly smart about.</p><p>Harry thinks that he’s never read so many books in all his life combined. Somehow, they’re all incredibly interesting when he doesn’t need to read them for school <em>or else</em> – and, too, when he is allowed to practice as many spells as he wants.</p><p>Voldemort even drills him on Defense a few times. It’s not Dark Arts – Harry checks, although it also seems like the concept of ‘Dark Arts’ might not mean as much as he’s always expected it to mean. Spells that only hurt people are one thing, but spells that control weather don’t seem inherently evil to him. Voldemort is obviously biased whenever he explains it to Harry, but he doesn’t really hide the fact that he’s biased, either.</p><p>Every other day he calls Hermione from the pay phone using his bottomless bag of pence. Once a week he gets letters from Ron and Hermione, and writes replies. Voldemort is picky about what time they send them – late evening, specifically – but Harry is far too happy about the chance to freely write letters to his friends to bother complaining about something silly like that. Because of this, he even manages to find out that Ron is going to be in Egypt for a month because his dad won the lottery – which explains why soon enough, Ron’s letters come just a bit less frequently. Because there are no Dursleys, Harry barely even notices.</p><p>He never quite forgets that he’s living in Voldemort’s house. But he does forget why that’s something other people would be alarmed by.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>Now it’s his birthday – or it will be in three minutes – and Harry feels a little weird about the fact that he doesn’t feel guilty.</p><p>He thinks that he should, sometimes. But it’s hard. It’s the most peaceful summer he’s ever had. He has clothes that are comfortable and that fit him. He can shower. He has as much food as he needs. He’s all done with his homework. He talks to his friends. He has time to just… lie around.</p><p>To exist.</p><p>The pocketwatch on his bedside table chirps, and Harry sits upright and turns the light off. He’s never done this with the light on, and he feels like leaving it on would somehow invalidate it.</p><p>“Happy birthday, Harry,” he whispers into his own cupped hands.</p><p>He’s 13 now.</p><p>He lies awake in the darkness for a bit, wondering if he’ll get midnight presents like he always did at the Dursleys. But then he realises that the deliveries won’t show up until morning anyway, so he rolls over under his covers and closes his eyes.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>In the morning, Voldemort is already awake, despite Harry’s ridiculously early waking hour. He’s sitting at the kitchen table nursing a mug of tea and staring with a furrowed brow at the upper part of the opposite wall.</p><p>Harry, who’s still in his pajamas, stops in the threshold. “You’re awake?”</p><p>Voldemort opens his mouth and then closes it again. “Hm,” is all he says.</p><p>Maybe he pulled an all-nighter? Nagini’s complained about him not sleeping before. Whatever the reason, Harry shrugs and moves to make himself something fancy, but Voldemort stops him when he tries to tug the eggs out of the fridge.</p><p>“Just have something to drink and get dressed,” he orders. Then – “Wait, do you celebrate your birthday?”</p><p>They haven’t gone out for breakfast before, so Harry squints at the Dark Lord. “Well… sort of,” he says. Voldemort doesn’t look any less inquiring. “I do, but I did it last night,” he adds. “At midnight.”</p><p>The man’s nose wrinkles. “Why midnight?”</p><p>“Well, the Dursleys wouldn’t let me do anything during the day, would they?”</p><p>Voldemort nods. “Sensible, then.” He puts his mug down. “Well, regardless, just get something to drink and get dressed. Something that will pass as muggle.”</p><p>Harry doesn’t feel opposed enough to argue, so he gets some milk and drinks it down as he heads back upstairs. When he returns, carefully stepping over Nagini’s lazily sprawled coils to get past the living room, Voldemort charms the usual glamours onto them both and then apparates Harry to a park he’s never seen before. When they step out of the alcove they’ve appeared in, it certainly does look muggle.</p><p>Harry glances up at Voldemort even as he follows the man across the grass and onto the sidewalk. “Why are we here?”</p><p>“You’ll see.” Voldemort is squinting at the street sign as if even he isn’t sure where they are or why they’re here, and Harry carefully preserves the memory of the Dark Lord glaring daggers at a metal pole.</p><p>“This way,” Voldemort finally decides, and picks a direction. He seems sure of himself, so Harry gamely follows, feeling amused at it all. It’s very early, and the air is still cool. Nobody much is out and about besides them, odd pair though they are.</p><p>After two blocks, there’s a familiar yell – but this time it isn’t hindered by phone static.</p><p>“HARRY!”</p><p>Harry almost walks right into Voldemort. At the last moment he recovers and darts around to stand next to him instead. Hermione is bounding off the bottom step of a set of steps leading up to a rather nice brick townhouse, waving at them – no, probably just at him, Harry.</p><p>“Hermione?” he gets out before she tackles him in a hug. Then, after regaining his breath, he manages a “What are you – ?!”</p><p>“Is there some reason he looks different?” Hermione asks Voldemort instead of answering Harry’s question.</p><p>“A glamour, and an excess of caution,” Voldemort drawls. He glances around the deserted street and waves his hand vaguely. Harry’s glamours vanish, and he finally gets the space in his lungs to speak.</p><p>“I’m so confused,” he says.</p><p>“It’s your birthday!” Hermione exclaims.</p><p>Harry’s not sure why that fact means he deserves all this pomp. Voldemort, though, interrupts his train of thought before he can turn it into a proper statement.</p><p>“I am given to understand that you did not have the opportunity to… do birthdays,” the man says slowly. “As I myself don’t indulge in the practice either, the Grangers are hosting you for the day. I’ll be back around three in the afternoon. Kindly don’t do anything incredibly stupid and Gryffindorish.”</p><p>“There’s nothing wrong with Gryffindors,” Hermione says haughtily.</p><p>“Self-delusion,” is all Voldemort says. Harry thinks maybe he ought to say something, but by the time he can imagine anything, Voldemort is already leaving.</p><p>He stares at Hermione instead. “Did you plot this with him?”</p><p>She shrugs, as if she hadn’t arranged his first ever birthday party with the Dark Lord. “I suppose,” is all she says. “Come on, we have – what – ten years of birthdays to catch you up on? I helped mom and dad pick out some presents, and dad made pancakes, and I think if you want to mom wants to go out for lunch and then get ice cream – ”</p><p>In a daze, Harry lets himself get pulled into the house. Mister and missus Granger aren’t exactly like he always imagined parents to be, but they’re a lot like Hermione, so maybe that’s because they’re Hermione’s parents. He doesn’t quite realise that this is all real until he takes his first bite of pancake, and then he has to work very hard indeed not to burst into tears right there at the table.</p><p>It’s the best birthday he’s ever had, and somehow, Voldemort helped to make it. So no – he doesn’t feel guilty at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I originally intended this to be short. I am a fool.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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